Is a Guild Wars 2 Expansion Coming or Guild Wars 3000?

April 29, 2014 - 7:46pm -- Lee B.

It has been pretty quiet from the ArenaNet offices as of late. Some could claim this is due to the expansion into the Eastern markets. Others could claim that this is due to the on-going WvW Tournament currently happening. However, a lot of signs are pointing to a whole new expansion to Guild Wars 2 on the table but have we weighed the possibility of Guild Wars 3,000?

What I mean by Guild Wars 3,000 is the next step of technology for Guild Wars 2. There are some limitations currently imposed on the game that a lot of people want to see addressed: the servers’ limitations of how many players can be affected by a single skill, or the dynamic event system and how we are drawn along in the game, or how current gameplay is making a meta that is all about critical damage. These and more are all issues that come down to some serious development time. That is a lot of time invested and likely can’t be done while under the strenuous two week update cycle we’ve seen. This also wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve seen ArenaNet put a hold on past update/expansion cycles to release us a completely re-envisioned product.

In the past we’ve seen in the original Guild Wars where they promised us an expansion every six months and they held their guns to that pretty closely. It was about the time that they came upon Utopia, the next planned expansion for Guild Wars, where they realized some of the limitations of their game restricted a lot of their ideas. Ultimately this is what lead them to announce Guild Wars 2 but only after a long period of silence as they tried to figure out what they wanted to do.

Now do I think we will be getting an announcement for a whole new game? No. That would be ridiculous to launch into the Eastern markets and then announce that they will be turning all development to Guild Wars 3. What we might see is an announcement that changes their current update cycle from two week Living World updates and the occasional game update to something more along the lines of every three weeks a Living World update and every six months a major feature pack. I say this because of how they announced this last pack as the April 2014 Feature Pack. It seems to me like they have plans to announce more of these feature packs in the future.

Now what about this possibility of an expansion I mentioned before? In the past I have said that we don’t need an expansion and that we’ve been getting massive content updates through the Living World releases. We’ve seen new maps, new enemies, new skills and even our world changing to these major events. However, this has changed as we have been waiting for this Living World Season 2 to come to us. What could we be waiting for? What are all those artists, developers and writer doing in this down time?

I think we will finally see that expansion and this is the perfect time for it. We are going to be seeing a whole bunch of new enemy types, new areas and probably quite a few more World Bosses if not Mordremoth himself. This is the time and place to bring us a massive content dump. All those artists, developers and writers are all working on something and likely it is to bring us to Maguuma.

What we will likely see is that we are all introduced into Maguuma through the beginning of the Living World Season 2. All players might be able to access the new area and interact with some of the stories for a bit before the big announcement that there is an expansion on the table. The kicker will be that you have to have the expansion in order to continue to experience the Living World.

All I know is that all signs are pointing to something big in the pipes, guys. All those artists, developers and writers are all still working on something and ArenaNet is being incredibly tight lipped about it. There wasn’t any big announcement at PAX East, there likely won’t be any huge announcements at E3 but we will hear something big at PAX Prime as part of their Anniversary Bash. I’m even willing to take bets that it will be that expansion.

Comments

I would say that living world, season 2 is definately moving into Magumma.

When we killed Scarlet, we saw the energy move over the land, from Lion's Arch, through what looked kind of like Rata Sum, then across a waste land, and into a forested area beyond.

In the aftermath, we meet Marjory's sister, who is a Seraph and is going to the Brisbane Wildlands hunting down smugglers.

This makes an nice setup for her sister going missing, and their mother asking Marjory to go find her sister, the trail leading into the Maguma wastes....thus letting the LW S2 take us toward Mordremoth.

As to an expansion, it is possible they are not working on a full expansion, per se, but they have said we will see a new race soon. Given recent events and how they have fallen, I think the Tengu less likely, as they no doubt are even more interested in cutting themselves off, but I think there is the potential that it leads to the Largos. After all, the Largos are a hunter society who value and even choose their leaders based on the ability to take down the greatest, most dangerous of prey.

We have taken down Zaitan and, now, Scarlet. Scarlet, who tried to get the Largos and Tengu to make an alliance against us but failed at it.

If this is the case, all this silent work could be more oriented on the expansion of a new race...possibly even an underwater racial city and beginning zones in the sea of sorrow area, expanding us toward the fire islands, a potential much later expansion.